"This is the realm of laws! Every law manipulator who has stepped past the door of cultivation has entered this world! We, the current living members of this holy land represent this planet's law manipulators. Do you think we wouldn't notice people trying to 'borrow' our gateway to this realm?"

Han Xuhan's mouth figuratively fell open.

"So there's such a detection system as well!"

His sheer awe at the mechanisms of this realm seemed to pacify Qian Yun slightly.

"Hmph! Know your limits, Xuhan. Law manipulation techniques are not something to be taught to any riffraff. We will not allow outsiders whom we do not approve of to use our gateway to access this realm."

"Those outsiders aren’t riffraff. They're my fellow cultivators, disciples of my sect!"

"You're giving away OUR technique to disciples of YOUR sect?!"

"You're wrong! I'm not giving anything away! I'm trying to encourage them to buy the technique..."

"...BUY?"

"My sect sells it."

Qian Yun fell silent for some reason. Han Xuhan began to wonder if the man's brain had short-circuited from anger when Qian Yun finally spoke once more.

"I see. So it's your sect where this technique originates from. They must have gotten it from our Holy Land back when it was flourishing. My apologies for being rude."

Han Xuhan's brain short-circuited from trying to figure out how Qian Yun had reached that conclusion and how he should respond to it. Should he confess that it was he who had sold the technique to the Crimson Snow sect?

". . . Apology accepted." Han Xuhan replied a couple of seconds later in a tone full of confidence.

He deemed it unnecessary to explain that he, Han Xuhan, was the biggest individual shareholder in the contract of sale of the Force type law manipulation manual.

Why have enemies when you can have friends?

"Those fellow disciples of mine...are you going to deny them from accessing this realm?" Han Xuhan prodded. This was vital to his business scheme.

Qian Yun sighed. "Honestly, if we had more members in our Holy Land, I would never allow it. But right now, some new members would do our sect some good. It is the only reason I haven’t destroyed their spawning points in the realm of laws."

"You can do that?" Han Xuhan gasped.

"Yes."

"If that is true, then I, Han Xuhan, am a dog."

". . .Stop praising yourself. Besides, why would I lie?"

"Because if you really had that power, our mutual positions here would be very different from the current status quo." Han Xuhan let out a loud laugh full of ridicule.

"#%$£."

Qian Yun succinctly spoke some words that Han Xuhan chose to remove from his memory.

"Since you're actually benefitting from new members joining your sect, what's the fuss about? You should be more concerned about my fees. "

"Fees? What fees?"

"Well, I'm the one recruiting new members for your Holy Land, so..."

Qian Yun once again vehemently expressed his emotions through some inappropriate words.

"Alright, alright. Enough with the unimportant topics. Let us begin tonight's studies. Begin your lecture, teacher Yun." Han Xuhan redirected the conversation, realizing that Qian Yun was on the verge of a stroke.

And so began his first lesson on Force type laws.

* * * * *

"That's it for tonight's session. Return and do your best to memorize the grade-1 alphabets I've taught you tonight. We will move on to a new set of alphabets in each new session. It's a good thing that you managed to decipher a significant portion of the alphabets back during our first meeting inside the Holy Land. That simplifies your curriculum. I estimate we can move on to grade-2 alphabets after a couple more sessions."

Qian Yun dismissed the lesson in an angry, tired tone. Han Xuhan quickly bade his farewell and left the Realm of Laws with his head spinning.

If there was one academic criterion he sucked at, it was memorization skill. His fellow disciples walked around with tomes of cultivation techniques stored inside their heads. The elders were even more accomplished, having memorized techniques that they didn't even practice.

Han Xuhan couldn't even remember how many diagrams the Skeletal Monarch manual contained, and it was his main cultivation technique.

Perhaps the root of the cause lay in how they approached their studies. Back at the orphanage, Han Xuhan's academic qualifications had been honed via personal practice, not aimed at passing exams set by the royal academy, which he had been too poor to attend. He never gave any importance to memorizing the texts, other than the most basic and easy-to-remember info.

After entering the sect, his memories of Earth had only enhanced that habit of his, as his studying back then consisted of regurgitating his understanding of some thesis written with a grammar more complex than the topic of the thesis.

And this had ended up becoming the main hurdle on his road to mastering the language of laws. Initiate law manipulators like him had to memorize a huge number of alphabets, each with unique usage.

The first layer of cultivation as a law manipulator consisted of two steps -

Step one- Perfectly memorize enough grade-1 alphabets to construct a law.

For force-type law manipulators, the grade-1 alphabets he needed to memorize corresponded to various types of forces found in nature. The most common example was gravity, easy to perceive, and easy to affect.

Step two- Successfully create a law fragment that you can activate with your own qi.

In a sense, Han Xuhan had already completed step one a long time ago. But the power he had used in order to activate the law fragments hadn't belonged to him.

When Qian Yun had been explaining this to him, a question had formed in Xuhan's mind.

"That's all very easy to understand, brother Yun...but how does this affect a cultivator's physique? Or is your cultivation system completely different from ours? Where is the transformation of your physique?"

Qian Yun had laughed.

"This is the difference that separates us law manipulators from other ordinary cultivators. Our physique transformation process is not dependent on our main cultivation technique. Rather, we treat physical enhancement as a secondary goal."

". . .Isn't that harmful for the next realm of cultivation where you need a strong physique to host a continuously strengthening soul? "

"Not at all! Just because it's a secondary goal, it doesn't mean we do not focus on it. The thing is, at the beginning layers of the physique transformation realm, the law fragments we have the capacity to create are...garbage in terms of quality. So using these law fragments to enhance our physique will never bring about a beneficial change in our bodies. We wait for the time when we reach the upper layers of the physique transformation realm where we can create decent law fragments and sustain their activation period for a long time."

Han Xuhan had quickly grabbed the opportunity to dig out more precious information.

"You mean your physical enhancements directly rely on law fragments. How does that work?"

"That's something you'll learn when you reach the upper layers of the physique transformation realm as a law manipulator. These are information closely related to breaking through to the soul reformation realm as a law manipulator. You've got a long way to go before that.

Focus on closer goals... For example, paying my fees," Qian Yun had replied.

"What fees?" Han Xuhan asked in a puzzled tone.

". . .HAN XUHAN!"

"Oh right, yes. You did mention a teaching fee per session. Sure, I'll send you tonight's 40 spirit stones immediately. But how do you plan on spending it though?"

"How I spend it is none of your damn business-WHAT DO YOU MEAN 40 SPIRIT STONES?! WE AGREED ON 500 SPIRIT STONES PER SESSION!"

Vulgarities continued to ring out frequently from the tunnel while Han Xuhan tried to convince the uncultured fellow that he did not, in fact, agree to pay 500 spirit stones. And that was how he had spent the last ten minutes of their meeting.